The BadCase design getting a bit long in the tooth; so-so upgrade path; no weekend hours for phone support.

The Bottom LineVelocity Micro's Edge Z30 offers a speedy, spare take on Intel's new overclockable K-Series CPUs. We noticed some unfortunate reductions to Velocity's support and it feels about time for a case refresh, but for the most part we can recommend the Edge Z30 to gamers looking for a lean and mean desktop.

Review Sections

The $1,499 Velocity Micro Edge Z30 gives us a relatively affordable take on Intel's new overclockable Core i7 875K CPU. You don't get dual-graphics-card capability, and it's possible to eke more power out of Intel's new chip with watercooling, but even without those higher-end features, the Edge Z30 showcases the versatility Intel's new CPU brings to gaming desktops. Other vendors offer the same CPU, so you'd be wise to shop around, but with its fast performance, some savvy components, and Velocity Micro's customary attention to detail, the Edge Z30 provides a high bar for comparison at this price.

The highlight of the Edge Z30 is Intel's new Core i7 875K quad-core processor. This new CPU features more granular overclocking than available previously from Intel. Rather than the older Core i7 920, which required ramping up the system bus, and thus dragging ever other core component setting along with it, Intel's new K-Series chips let vendors and enthusiasts dial up the CPU core speed, the TurboBoost settings, as well as the memory frequencies independently. It also gives Intel an answer to AMD's line of affordable, overclocking-friendly Black Edition chips.

Thanks to Intel's new CPU, Velocity Micro sent the Edge Z30 to us with its Core i7 875K chip overclocked (or, "Hyperclocked," by Velocity's online configurator) to 3.3GHz from its stock 2.93GHz setting. That's not quite as "hyper" as the 4.0GHz Falcon Northwest achieved with the Core i7 875K in a Talon system we reviewed, but the Talon featured liquid CPU-cooling and a $2,499 price tag. The $1,499 Edge Z30 is a more modest build and uses only a standard desktop CPU fan.

Velocity Micro Edge Z30

Gateway FX6831-01

Price

$1,499

$1,299

CPU

3.3GHz Intel Core i7 875K (overclocked)

2.8GHz Intel Core i7 860

Motherboard chipset

Intel H57DD

Intel H57

Memory

4GB 1,333MHz DDR3 SDRAM

8GB 1,333MHz DDR3 SDRAM

Graphics

1GB ATI Radeon HD 5850

1GB ATI Radeon HD 5850

Hard drives

(2) 500GB 7,200 rpm

1.5TB 7,200 rpm

Optical drive

dual-layer DVD burner

dual-layer DVD burner

Networking

Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n wireless

Gigabit Ethernet

Operating system

Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

Because of that price discrepancy with the Talon, the $1,299 Gateway FX6831-01Gateway FX6831-01 provides a more apt side-by-side comparison. We like the Gateway for two reasons. It's a competent gaming box for a reasonable price, for one. We also like its hard-drive design, which lets you hot swap extra drives through the front panel, without messing with any data or power cables. We appreciate Velocity Micro's always tidy build quality, but while the Edge Z30 and its outward-facing, internal drive bays aren't terrible, front-loading drive bays like those in the Gateway have won our loyalty. It might be time for Velocity Micro to give its tried-and-true case design an overhaul.

From a component standpoint, we'd expect the Velocity Micro to have an edge over the Gateway due to its higher price tag, and it seems the bulk of that extra expense goes to the processor. Velocity Micro also uses a tweaked version of the Radeon HD 5850 graphics card, with higher core and memory clock speeds than the model in the Gateway. It also has wireless networking. We suppose a new chip, a hot-rod 3D card, and Wi-Fi could account for an extra $200, but that still leaves the Gateway advantages in its hard drive capacity, as well as its system memory. That leads us to conclude that the Velocity Micro's value proposition is simply adequate.

We can't be too hard on the Velocity's price because the faster CPU and graphics card provide the Edge Z30 with tangible performance benefits over the Gateway. Across all of our application tests, the Edge Z30 came in second, behind only the significantly more expensive Falcon Northwest Talon. You can expect that the Edge Z30 will handle most day-to-day applications and consumer-level multimedia editing tasks with little difficulty.

We're also happy with the Edge Z30's gaming performance. Its Far Cry 2 scores were not only well above 60 frames per second at both resolutions, but they also came in well ahead those of the Gateway system, by roughly 10 frames per second on both Far Cry 2 tests. You might hit a graphics bottleneck at very high resolutions and image quality settings with the Edge Z30, but otherwise we'd expect this system to provide a smooth gaming experience, regardless of the title.

Unlike the last iteration of the Edge Z30, whose ability to accept a second graphics card changed after a midlife motherboard switch, this version comes to us with only a single 3D card slot. We had sort of gotten used to the idea of adding a second card to a $1,500 or so desktop, but given the price, current performance, and 550-watt power supply in this build, we can't say we really mind the Edge Z30's single card limitation.